ummmmmm… My childhood and more recently (As in 30 seconds ago since you made me question my memory) this. 
And how many steps do you suppose it takes to go from a green cane plant to a coarse white powder?
About as many steps as it takes to turn corn into a viscous transparent syrup, basically.
Well, cane sugar and HFCS are chemically quite different. Cane sugar is sucrose and HFCS is mostly a mixture of glucose and fructose, with a fair amount of dextrins of various sizes (and probably some sucrose too). Beet sugar, however, is sucrose just like cane. If “serious bakers” refuse to use it, that is mere superstition.
So your memory tells you that you put sugar canes in your coffee, does it? You might want to get that seen to then.
To get the sugar you buy in your supermarket, sugar cane (or sugar beet) has to go to a factory and go through a bunch of processes, just like corn has to go to a factory and go through a bunch of processes in order to get HFCS.
You can just squeeze the cane, evaporate the juice, and use what remains as sugar–not quite the same as refined white sugar, but maybe better for some purposes, and plenty sweet.
That doesn’t work so well for corn. Sugar cane really is pretty close to sugar “in the field.”
No. My schooling tells me that sugarcane has been turned into sugar for thousands of years (510 BC or so), and can be done in your home (Click here for directions), while HFCS requires “milling corn to produce corn starch, then processing that starch to yield corn syrup, which is almost entirely glucose, and then adding enzymes that change some of the glucose into fructose”
I don’t recall Plato (or any old-timey scribe) waxing nostaolgic about enzymatic processing…
Well, history says otherwise… take it up with them 
Many years ago in a town near Dallas where I grew up I purchased a 12 pack of Coca Cola at a very good price. I detected a different flavor and decided to get angry and call Coke and complain. I was prepared to accuse them of watering down or altering the recipe for the sale rack of coke. The representative on the phone assured me it was the exact same recipe as all their bottled products and that the water from various bottling localities can cause a flavor difference. She further explained that although unusual, sometimes product is shipped to different regions due to demand or over supply. I was early in my cooking carrier and took it as a sign of a good flavor detection on my part.
What they do now or how filtering effects it I have no idea but the answer has satisfied me for many years.
What has how long a process has been used got to do with any of the issues in this thread? It certainly does nothing to refute the fact that to say, as you did, that sugar is something that you can just go out into the fields and get, and then try back that up with a picture of canes, is blithering idiocy. Cane sugar no more or less “natural” than HFCS (not that that has any relevance to whether one or the other is “better for you”).
History says nothing about the issue (how complex the processes involved are) at all.
I think you need to find out what “fructose”, and for that matter “syrup” mean.
Sugar =/= sucrose.
Yes. I know that. I know that, ultimately, you are getting to a sugar/sucrose state. my point was the HOW we’re doing it, and how HFCS requires enzymes added to the mix and it’s all modern science chemicals and various other whatnots, whereas sugarcane = sucrose without all the other enzyme-adding bits…
My point was, and still is, that I can easily get SUGAR/SUCROSE by walking outside and grabbing a sugarcane (And either gnaw at it like a panda or just boil it a bit), whereas if I want me a good heaping helping of HFCS I better go and visit my local laboratory. And that the one seems much more natural and better for me (For as “good” as sugar can arguably be) than the other. Your point about modern refining of sugar is still valid, but if I go the organic route I can get organic sugar, bu there’s no such thing as organic HFCS.
You’re the one that got all titties-in-a-ringer about me dunking sugar cane sticks into coffee… which I don’t even drink. 
I think this thread has been hijacked enough, however, as the OP’s question referred to water moreso than sweeteners.
Sugar does not simply mean sucrose, either chemically or in cooking. Fructose, lactose, and many other things are also sugars, and have similar properties to sucrose.
Fructose is certainly at least as old a part of human diet than sucrose, as fruit has been consumed all through human history and prehistory.
Syrup is simply any sugar disolved in water.
If you’re going to say fructose is bad for you, you’d have to say all fruit is bad for you, which is ridiculous. Like any sugar, it’s not good for you (which is not the same as bad for you) in a pure, refined form, and is bad for you in excess, but there’s no difference between fructose and sucrose in this.
In short, learn what you’re talking about. HFCS is simply a sugar syrup, like honey, molasses, or a syrup you’d make from white sugar at home.
You certainly can go out into “the field” and gather a substance much closer to high fructose corn syrup than sugar cane is to processed sugar: It’s called honey. The processing is already very kindly done for you by the bees, enzymes and all.
http://www.sweetsurprise.com/comparing-hfcs-and-other-sweeteners
When we lived in Germany, Hubster was adamant that we not buy the Coke sold in the military exchange system. It was bottled in Essen. We’d go on the German economy to a grocery store and buy the Coke stocked there. It was bottled in Giessen.
He could taste the difference.
~VOW
I’m thinking about my assumption (I said presumption by mistake) that uniformity is a food mega-corporations goal from the get go. But on the other hand I think that if an American orders “a hamburger” from a McDonalds, some countries’ default food will have curry in it. Just a guess, but you get the idea.
But what prompted my OP assumption: in my personal experience, after my third month in Israel, when I was broke, I didn’t want more hummus (heresy, I know), and going to a Subway was like a message from Mom and a gift from the USO. And I never go to a Subway at home…
Boy, was Plato and and the ancient peoples of Africa, Europe, and Asia so dumb that they didn’t know how to extract fructose out of all that corn growing all around them… across two oceans.
Military personnel and their dependents overseas treat their homesickness by regular pilgrimages to US-franchised fast food outlets.
I remember crying over every sesame seed on a Big Mac bun.
~VOW
Good thing our bodies don’t use enzymes to turn sucrose into glucose and fructose. Oh wait…
From a relative who worked for Pepsi, they use the same water from the tap as anyone else, but they re-filter and remove all impurities. This included all chlorine, fluoride, and contaminants from the delivery system. That way they start out without any variables. So the Pepsi, or the Coke you drink in California, should taste exactly the same as what is delivered to the people of Main.
Then, they buy this artificial color, or flavor, just because it is cheaper. Or maybe use a different preservative. Since, of course, only a very small amount of people can taste the difference.
That is one of the reasons they do bottled water.
There’s a very moving moment in The Deer Hunter where the three US soldiers have just escaped from their tormentors, and one soldier is physically and psychologically at his limits. As his buddies try to keep him afloat, he breaks out crying “I want a …”
I remember it’s moving but I can’t remember the humble American food. A Hershey bar?
I’m pretty sure I covered all my bases at the satrt by saying I was Jenny McCarthying my stance… So let’s all just back off
All science aside. I still say that when the choice is something that comes from a more natural source than another, that the natural source is usually the best route. Yes, I know a natural source of water can contain bad things that science can take out of it before I drink it – That’s not my point. It’s not black and white. Science is great, but every now and again it has its drawbacks for its strides forward.
Can you gaurentee me that the process by which they make HFCS (And the source of corn from which they make HFCS) is free of any doohickeys that could be causing problems that I Jenny McCarthyed eariler? I mean actual scientific proof that it is no worse for wear than pure sugarcane (processed in whatever way you wish)?
If so, unlike Jenny, I’m willing to stop soapboxing. But I’ll still look for bread that has the nice NO HFCS on the bag…
In the U.S., if you see “sugar” in an ingredients list on any product it means “sucrose.” It is literally equal for this purpose. That may or may not be what you meant, but the possibility for confusion is obvious.
You basically have carbohydrates, complex sugars, and simple sugars. The goal of digestion is to break down any carbohydrate that is not a simple sugar into a simple sugar. Fructose is one of the simple sugars, along with glucose and galactose, that are absorbed directly through the intestines. Enzymes break down sucrose into glucose and fructose, lactose into glucose and galactose, and maltose into glucose and glucose.
It’s kind of frightening that people think that using enzymes on good old fashioned corn syrup is evil scientific tampering with the forces of nature. Fructose is sweeter than sucrose, which is sweeter than glucose, which is sweeter than lactose. You use them or mix them to produce the sweetness you want. HFCS is a bit sweeter than glucose but it tastes much more like sucrose than fructose does. And it’s cheaper than sucrose, mainly because sugar is subject to tariffs and corn isn’t. That’s about it. None of the nasty health effects attributed to HFCS have good substantiation, but what does that matter if you want to be hysterical about something?
What I find most hilarious (and discouraging about my opinion of the human race) is that agave syrup, the sugar of choice used and consumed by all the organic, anti-corporate, eat foods straight from the field segment of our society is much closer to HFCS in composition and effect on the body than it is to sugar.
Modern day refined sucrose sugar is a product of science, technology, and industry. So is HFCS. So is agave syrup. Too much of any of it is bad for you and in exactly the same way (unless you have a condition that processes it badly). There is no good sugar. It’s only function is to taste good, not be healthy.